


can't forget the time or place

by barelyprolific



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, M/M, POV Nico Kim, Pre-Relationship, pre-s15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 18:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18057806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barelyprolific/pseuds/barelyprolific
Summary: A fellowship at Grey-Sloan Memorial is one of opportunity. Even if it means being back in Seattle.





	can't forget the time or place

Grey-Sloan Memorial is legendary; the hospital students fantasize about interning at. The best doctors in the world have worked there, or are working there. Nico is still wrapping his head around the face that, thanks to Link, he gets to spend his fellowship year there. Trailing after the Chief of Surgery, Miranda Bailey, Nico is just trying not to gape in awe. The words she’s saying are barely registering. Then he almost bumps into her when she stops.

“Even our interns are top of the line,” Chief Bailey states, paused in the middle of a relatively mellow emergency room. She glances around, turns slightly. Nico’s gaze dutifully follows. “Schmitt!”

“Schmitt” is an intern, apparently, standing at the end of a nearby patient’s bed, head bowed over his charts. He jumps a little, turns around with wide eyes behind thick-framed glasses. Nico has the fleeting thought that he’s cute, watching Schmitt blink, shuffle forward, eyes flickering between Bailey, Nico, and Link.

“Doctor Bailey? Did you need something?”

Nico prepares himself for an introduction, shifting to take a step forward and offer his hand.

“Where’s Helm?”

Huh. So not an introduction. Nico’s arms cross over his chest, and he tilts his head, watching the intern’s shoulders slump, barely noticeable.

“Oh, um.” Schmitt blinks again, licks full lips. Looks over at Nico and Link with red ears.

Nico feels kinda bad for him.

“Helm’s in surgery with Doctor Grey,” Schmitt finally gets out, swallowing.

“And Parker?”

Nico watches, fascinated, as Schmitt’s fingers tighten on the edge of his ipad, lips pressing together briefly.

“Doctor Shepard’s rotation, up in Neuro. And,” Schmitt continues, voice rising, tone sharpening slightly, “Roy is out sick, Qadri has the day off.”

Eyebrows up, Nico exchanges a look with Link. From the expression on her face, Bailey is less impressed with Schmitt’s outburst. Nico doesn’t think the intern was too out of line, though.

“Alright, Schmitt,” Bailey says, annoyance in every syllable. “I guess you’ll do.” She gestures to Link and Nico, who stands up a little straighter, lets his mouth curl slightly at one side when their eyes meet. “This is our new head of ortho, Doctor Lincoln, and his fellow, Doctor Kim. This is Doctor Schmitt, one of our interns.”

“A top of the line Grey-Sloan Memorial intern. Nice to meet you.” Link shakes his hand, claps his shoulder. Schmitt’s eyebrows furrow, then smooth.

“I should get back to my patient. Doctor Hunt--”

“Well then, go, go.” Bailey waves Schmitt away, doesn’t even wait until he’s out of earshot to turn back to Link and Nico. “They call that one ‘Glasses’.”

“Not very original,” Nico points out. He likes the glasses. Bailey chuckles, shakes her head.

“It’s because his glasses fell into a patient during a surgery. Now, c’mon, I’ll show you neuro. Parker’s an intern you should meet… He saved this hospital with his computer skills.”

As Bailey leads them towards the elevators, Nico glances back over his shoulder to find Schmitt watching them, expression unreadable. He looks away as soon as he realizes Nico has noticed.

 

“So what do you think?”

Link asks the question later, over wings and beer at a sports bar. They’re talking pre-season hockey on the television nearest them, but Nico’s thoughts are still at the hospital.

“I think it’s gonna be a good place to work and learn,” Nico says, choosing his words carefully, then takes a long drink of beer. “As long as you’re not an intern.”

Link chuckles. “You noticed that too? That poor kid, what was his name? _Glasses._ ” Link’s chuckle turns into a snicker.

“Schmitt,” Nico says flatly, and takes another drink of his beer. “His name is Schmitt, and worse things have happened than glasses falling into a body cavity during surgery.”

Laughter fading, Link studies him, sharp blue eyes assessing across the table. “Grey-Sloan Memorial is a teaching hospital,” he says, as close to agreement as Nico knows he’ll get. “We’ll be working with him.”

“And we won’t call him Glasses.”

Link grins, picks up a wing and tears a bite out of it, chases it down with his beer. “No,” he agrees. “We won’t call him Glasses.”

The conversation moves away from interns and back towards the veritable who’s who of the medicine world that their new workplace hosts. If Nico’s thoughts return throughout the conversation to the way Schmitt’s shoulders slumped, that unreadable look on his face, he keeps it to himself.

A couple of hours and a slight buzz later, Nico lets himself into his box-filled apartment. He hasn’t started unpacking since he moved back to Seattle, although he supposes that’s something he should do before he actually starts work.

That’s a project for a Nico had didn’t have three beers, though, so he throws himself down on the futon on the middle of the living room, still unfolded from that morning. He covers his eyes with his arm and groans.

He can’t _believe_ he’s back in Seattle. Thirteen years in California and he’s right back where he started. The last five in San Francisco are already starting to feel like a dream that Nico wasn’t really ready to wake up from. He’s back in Seattle for longer than a week during the holidays, for the first time since high school.

Wallowing does him no good. Groaning again, Nico forces himself to sit up, ignoring the queasy feeling in his stomach as he staggers to his feet and over into the area that passes for his kitchen to grab a cup of water. Drinks it in three gulps, refills it and goes it again. When his head starts feeling a little less fuzzy, he sets the cup down, stretches his arms over his head to pop his back.

Unbidden, Schmitt’s face pops into Nico’s mind again. A hint of spine in wide, murky eyes; messy, brown hair, a full, pink mouth.   

Nico needs more water. He needs more water, and to not be standing in his unpacked kitchen, drinking it from a plastic yellow Dickey’s Barbecue cup thinking about an intern he met for all of thirty seconds. An intern who certainly hadn’t been paying any attention to him--which is fine, because Nico is about to start his fellowship year. Relationships and fellowships don’t work, everyone knows that.

Rolling his neck, Nico shuts his eyes, breathes out slowly. Reaches for a box on the counter, and opens it.

Maybe three beer Nico _needs_ a project.


End file.
